Alan Foster - The Metrognome and Other Stories

But Borregos had no intention of retreating. He'd worked too long to pry these men away from the comforts of conquered Cuzco. It had been less difficult than he'd expected, though.

Most of the wealth of that plundered city was well on its way to Spain by the time these men had arrived in Peru. Cortes and the Pizarro brothers had stripped the Inca capital of its gold and silver and jewels. The city had been full of desperate, anxious men eager for a chance at the loot that had aroused the interest of all Iberia. Such men made good fighters, willing to obey any order that promised a golden reward.

No Priest traveled with Borregos's party. The fathers made him nervous, with their moaning and whining over the deaths of infidel Indians. Their presence would make the necessary butchery awkward. So Borregos and his men had slipped out of Cuzco quietly, in clusters and couples, to avoid the attention of the authorities as well as the Church.

He turned and shouted to the Indian standing nearby. Omo started at the mention of his name, hurried over to the Capitan's rock. He was Cotol, from a tribe of Puma worshipers who lived far up the coast. The Cotol had no love for the Inca. Many of Borregos's Indian allies were Cotol. A degraded race, Borregos mused, with none of the primitive dignity of their Inca masters.

"Are you certain of this trail, Omo?"

The Indian replied in broken Spanish. "Yes, lord. This is the right way. This is the only way. Soon we be there, at the greatest place in all the Four Corners of the World. It is small because it is secret, and more important even than Cuzco."

"And this is where the gold is?"

"Yes, lord. The temple atop the mountain city is consecrated to the memory of Viracocha, the first Inca, the Creator. The walls of the temple are plated with the sweat of the sun, its roof and floor with the tears of the moon. It is here that Huanya Capac, the last great emperor, brought much treasure for safekeeping. It was here that Viracocha first touched the earth amidst fire and thunder and sent down his children to be Incas and lords over the world."

"You're afraid of this place, aren't you, Omo?"

"Yes, lord."

"Then why do you go onward? Why not return to your home in the far north?"

"Because my lord would have me killed." The Indian's gaze did not meet Borregos's. Which was as it should be, the Capitan thought.

"That's right, Omo. Until we've finished our business here. Then you can go home, with all the llamas you and your men can drive." Borregos could be generous. He had little use for llamas. It was gold he was after. Sweat of the sun, the Incas called it. His eyes gleamed.

"Come on, men!" he shouted at the struggling. troop. "For good King Charles and for glory!" Drawing his sword, he brandished it at the cliffs overhead.

"He can keep his glory," muttered one of the bearded, dirty soldiers m the column as he urged his horse upward, "so long as there's plenty of gold."

"Don't forget the Chosen Women," grinned his companion. "This is a big temple place. There ought to be plenty of them, too, and no priests to trouble our pleasure."

"Aye, I'd forgotten them," the other soldier confessed. He shoved at his mount with renewed strength. "This will be a memorable day."

The farmer-warriors fought bravely, and the Priests prayed hard, but sling-stones and cotton armor were no match for bullets and Toledo steel. The Spaniards' closeorder fire eventually drove the defenders back from the trailhead. Once the invaders crested the first wall and achieved relatively level ground where they could use their horses, the end seemed near.

The teacher retreated with his surviving fighters to the great temple of the sun that rose from the far end of the city. There the Spaniards paused, impressed but not awed by the massive stone structures. Sacsayhuaman in Cuzco had been larger and better defended, but it too had fallen.

For now the invaders contented themselves with looting and burning the thatched buildings of the city and enjoying a late afternoon meal. On three sides of the temple the cliffs fell away to sheer precipices thousands of feet high. Their prey had nowhere to go. Though the men were anxious to press in to the real treasure, Capitan Borregos counseled them to rest and regain their strength.

There was gold aplenty even in the common houses, and while the unchosen women were not as comely as those who served the temple, the conquistadores were momentarily sated. Within the barricaded temple the teacher and his warriors listened to the screams and shouts and bit their gums until they bled.

"What are we to do now?" asked one badly lacerated warrior.

"We should not stay here. We must go out and meet them and die like men," said the teacher.

"Perhaps we can bargain with them?" suggested another hopefully. "They do not kill everyone."

"They do when the mood strikes them," the teacher snapped. "Nor are these men of nobility, such as the few who led the army which took the capital. These do not even bring a Priest with them to remind them of their god. We can die in here, or outside, in the sun."

"Not even that," said another fighter mournfully. "The rain covers the sky."

"What is that infernal noise?" The teacher whirled, stared toward the back rooms of the temple, from which odd, piping music could be heard.

"Have you forgotten Crazy Yahuar?" said a warrior apologetically. "He sits by the hitching post of the sun and plays his pipes."

"Go and get him," ordered the frustrated teacher. "At least he can die like a man."

Two of the warriors hurried back through the passageways until they reached the little plaza open to the sky where the stone and metal obelisk of the Inti Huatana stood probing the storm. It was very dark there from the clouds. A strange rumbling was coming from the mountain beneath them, and the crown of the Inti Huatana was glowing like the sun as Crazy Yahuar played to it. The two warriors drew back from the holy place, for it seemed to them that as Crazy Yahuar played, the hitching post of the sun answered him.

"Better get the horses to shelter," one of Borregos's lieutenants suggested. "We can wait out this damn storm."

"I suppose that's best." Borregos was unhappy. He'd told his men to wait. Now they faced the prospect of spending a wet night waiting in the native enclosures or making an attack m the rain. "Curse the luck. Though our gold will wait for a pleasant morning, I suppose."

"Capitan!" Horregos whirled to stare at the soldier standing guard on the nearby rampart.

Something was rising toward the citadel from the gorge below, soaring into the clouds. Faces gathered at the windows of the temple of the sun. Even the priests were drawn from their final devotions. Above the rising wind and the deep-throated thrumming that rose from inside the mountain was the erratic whisper of Crazy Yahuar's pipes.

The sled was bright silver and gold, and it floated through the air like the condor. Riding the sled and clad all in tears of the moon was the form of a woman. Her silvery hair was long and stiff and formed a glowing halo about her. Of her face, some thought it beautiful and others the face of a coated skull. Her eyes glittered with inhuman fire.

She held in one hand the staff of the sun, a rod filled with sunlight too bright to look at. When it snapped downward, it sent a thunderbolt flying toward the mountaintop city.

It touched first Capitan Borregos, then his lieutenant, then the men next to them, turning them to ash and memory. Subsequent bolts sent stones as well as men flying from their positions. A few of the soldiers forgot their fear long enough to fire at the apparition, but bullets were as useless as lances against it.

And when the last invader had been cut down and destroyed, Mother Thunder whirled once over the citadel and touched downward with her staff before vanishing into the fading storm.